Many consumer electronic devices, such as cameras, personal music players, and the like, store files or other content capable of being played back. Increasingly, a personal computer is being used as primary storage for such content. Electronic devices are therefore being designed to interface with personal computers to exchange content. For example, a digital camera may transfer photograph files to a personal computer hard drive. As another example, a personal music player may receive music files from a personal computer.
Storage cards, such as, for example, a Compact Flash (CF) memory card, Secure Digital (SD) memory card, a Memory Stick, or the like, may be used to transfer content between an electronic device and a personal computer. Such storage cards may include, for example, a removable memory device including flash memory. A device may write to a storage card, and the storage card may then be removed from the device and inserted into a personal computer, which may retrieve information from the storage card. Similarly, a personal computer may write to a storage card, and the storage card may then be removed from the personal computer and inserted into the device, which may retrieve information from the storage card. For example, a storage card may be used to transfer photographs from a camera to a personal computer, or to transfer music files from a personal computer to a personal music player.
In some cases, it may be advantageous for a personal computer to process the content before or after a transfer. For example, a music file may be stored in the personal computer as a relatively large high-fidelity file. Prior to transferring the music file to a personal music file for playback, it may be advantageous to transcode the music file into a smaller low-fidelity file. As another example, metadata may be added to photographs received from a camera.
In many cases, content, such as, for example, copyrighted media content, may include protection features, such as by implementing Digital Rights Management (DRM) features. However, multiple technical mechanisms for content protection exist, and various devices may handle content protection mechanisms differently. Furthermore, DRM may specify restrictions on a particular content, a particular device, or both. For example, a subscription DRM service might allow a user unlimited playback of all content on a particular personal music player, such as allowing unlimited playback of all music for one month. As another example, a per-use DRM service might allow a user to play a particular content a particular number of times, such as allowing a user to play a movie once, or allowing a user to play a song three times. The multiplicity of technical mechanisms, the different types of restrictions, and the different methods of handling DRM used by different devices may each complicate the transfer or playback of DRM content.